A Pair of Very Unusual Idiots
by electricskeptic
Summary: It's the little moments that count the most. Pure, unashamed fluff. Vince/Howard slash.


**Disclaimer: **The Mighty Boosh and all of its affiliated characters etc belong to Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt and Babycow Productions. No copyright infringement is intended and I'm not making any money from this. Don't sue me, I'm skint.

**Author's Ramblings: **I know, _another _new thing. Sigh... This time, it's just a short little oneshot for your reading pleasure. Because everyone needs some fluff. This is my first attempt at doing a first-person PoV, so my apologies if it's crap. Also, sorry if Vince seems a bit too deep in this, but I really needed to write him that way for the story to work. Enjoy!

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It's the little moments that count the most.

You know, those few stolen minutes in-between our epic adventures, when we're not running from murderous yetis or fighting evil green Cockneys, but just being together. Not arguing or bickering or fighting, just enjoying one another's company.

I think those are the moments that I enjoy the most, the moments that I long for amongst the excitement of our everyday lives - those quiet lulls where nothing much really happens, but somehow the air is filled with tension and the normality is addictive.

I'm not making much sense, am I? Sometimes, in a rare moment of thoughtfulness, I wonder when we stopped being Howard and Vince, and started being HowardandVince, two individuals perfectly in sync with each other, a single, unstoppable force that even Death couldn't split apart (and believe me, he's tried.)

I also wonder what it was that brought us together in the first place. If you'd never met us before and you saw photos of each of us on our own, you would never in a million years place us together. He's got the tall, scruffy, tramp look going on, whereas I'm the waif-like, androgynous (I _think_ that's what Howard calls it) embodiment of style. He's locked in black-and-white, and I'm painted vivid Technicolor. He's from Leeds, I'm from Camden. It just shouldn't work. But it does.

I guess then that _real_ question should be what is it that keeps us together? You would think, that after seeing each other day and night every day of our lives since we were about _that_ high, we'd eventually get bored of each other. And, okay, every so often one of us does go off on our own little adventure, whether it be my attempts to join the latest band, or Howard on one of his solo 'Man of Action' expeditions. But at the end of it, we always come right back to where we started off.

Sometimes I think that the only thing we have in common is our desire to be successful. Both of us want popularity, recognition, the respect that we deserve. Other times, I think it's our individuality that keeps us tethered to each other... our freakishness, if you want to be blunt about it. We're both almost frighteningly unique, albeit in entirely different ways. Then of course, I put it down to plain old, sheer stupidity. 'Course, Howard's much cleverer than me, I got no illusions about that, but he still ain't exactly the brightest crayon in the box, is he? I least I _know_ I'm thick - he seems to be in denial about it, seems to fancy himself clever. That makes it all the more tragic... and all the more endearing. But at the end of the day, whichever way you choose to look at it, whatever fancy spin you want to put on it, when you strip us right down to the bare bones, that's all we are - just a pair of very unusual idiots.

These moments of careful contemplation don't last long, or I give myself a headache. More often than not, I catch sight of my refection after only a few seconds and become distracted, and then that's the end of it for a few more weeks.

At the moment, we're collapsed on the bed after a late-night crimp session, exhausted and sweaty but completely satisfied. I comment on how Naboo's going to be furious when he sees the mess we made of his shop, and Howard give me one of those small smiles that I know no-one else gets to see. I get a little fluttery feeling in my stomach, and I wonder, as I often do, how he can make me feel like this; why, out of all the unspeakably cool people I hang out with, it's a miserable, paranoid jazz-freak that matters to me the most. Sometimes I wonder whether I love him, but I've never really known what love is, so I have nothing to compare it to, and the thought slips away like a leaf on the breeze.

Love. It's such a funny thing. People are always talking about love - how many times do you think that word comes up every day? In the windows of card shops, songs on the radio, a thousand empty 'I love yous' between strangers and friends and people who you'll probably never see again. But if you ask anyone what it _means_ - what this incredible thing that everyone's so obsessed with actually _is_ - not one person will be able to give you a straight answer. Try it, if you don't believe me.

Some people say that love is sex. I don't believe them. I've slept with lots of people - some of them women, some of them men. Some of them were attractive, and some were not. Sometimes I enjoy it, other times it's just a chore, a means of manipulation, of getting what I want. Sometimes it's downright fantastic, and other times it's just a big disappointment. I've slept with lots of people, but I haven't _loved_ any of them. Some of them I've liked, formed a relationship with, seen afterwards. Most of them I can't remember their names or faces, just drunken fumbles that I've come to regret.

Some people say that love is just a deep and powerful friendship, but that can't be right, either. Friends don't go for candlelit dinners or take strolls in the moonlight. Friends don't kiss to the sound of a thousand violins and rose petals falling through the air. So what, then? A combination of the two? Friends who fuck, who take physical pleasure from each other because they can't get it from anyone else? Is that the dictionary definition of this great thing, 'love', that everyone's talking about? If that's true, then I'm glad that I'm incapable of it.

Howard's looking at me again, but it's an odd look. He's not smiling anymore, he's deadly serious. He reaches out to gently push a strand of hair off my face, and that tingly feeling comes back as his fingers touch my skin. Almost instantly, he snatched his hand away again, looking sorry. I'm sorry, too. I miss the hand. I want it back. I want him to do it again. I want him to kiss me. I want him to do a whole lot more than kiss me. He mumbles an apology, and I swallow nervously, feeling the need to set the record straight.

"Don't apologize. I liked it."

He stares at me in shock for a moment, and then slowly, hesitantly, he reaches his hand out again, stroking my hair softly. I close my eyes and lean into the touch, feeling warm and content and fuzzy. I don't even notice that our faces are inching closer and closer together until I feel a pair of soft lips upon mine. The kiss is soft and sweet and oh-so-gentle, but the tenderness is masking a slow-burning passion that could explode into being at any moment. The air feels as though it's charged with static electricity, and I worriedly reach one hand up to my hair, just to check that it's not standing on end.

All at once, it's as though someone's ignited a fuse; the change comes on suddenly and without warning, the kiss becoming desperate as clothes are tugged and torn at in our haste to get as close to each other as physically possible. Next thing I know, I'm flat on my back and he's trailing kisses all the way down my body as one hand lovingly caresses my hip, his knees gently nudging my thighs apart. I feel more special and loved and worthy than I've ever felt before in my life, as though he's worshipping each and every part of me.

He suddenly stops what he's doing and just gazes down at me, looking me right in the eyes. They say that eyes are the windows to the soul, and Howard's, tiny though they are, seem to convey his every emotion in that moment. I feel tears springing to my own eyes, and I quickly blink them away, not wanting him to see. Bursting into a crying jag could really put a dampener on things, so to speak. And anyway, they're tears of happiness, more than anything else.

Because I think I finally know what love is.

And out of all the words ever spoken between us, out of all the cheap insults flung at each other in moments of rage, all the clever little rhymes, all the witty, comfortable banter, the ones that really matter, the ones that will stand out in my memory for years to come, would be the ones first uttered in the semi-darkness of a psychedelic flat above a second-hand shop in Dalston, after a bout of Satsuma-fuelled crimping with the moonlight filtering through the window and staining the sheets electric blue:

"Vince... I love you."

"I love you too, Howard."

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**A/N: **That might possibly be the fluffiest thing I've ever written. Oh God, what's happening to me? Where's all the angst, the blood and the gore and violence, the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll? I think I must go and have a lie down...

Reviews, as always, are love.


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